Liberalism in the social-democrat flavour is taking money from the rich in order to give hand-outs to the poor rather than creating an environment where they can earn it themselves, which is political Robin Hoodism in my opinion. Too many safety nets out there to take advantage of. Liberals like the capacity to see beyond Step #1, the consequences of their choices escape them. For instance, they fail to see or neglect to mention the fact that it's the rich who create jobs for the poor, not the other way around. By cutting into the profits of the rich you're not making them "less rich", nor are you "redistributing wealth", you're just killing jobs since there's a reason why the rich are rich, and it goes beyond the obvious inheritence of wealth - they're rich because they understand how a cost-benefit analysis works. The rich aren't paying the extra tax - you are, by buying dearer goods, paying more for services or by losing your job. That's not logical - it'd be logical to allow industrious people to multiply their wealth as much as possible so that it redistributes itself. That's neither here nor there though, the truth is somewhere in-between of those two polar opposite political stances, which is where I sit most times.
I'm not surprised that you seem to be leaving out an important, uh, half of economic theory when you say the poor don't create jobs for the rich.
History shows us time and again that when the rich pay their fair share in taxes while they're still profitable, or the minimum wage is increased, jobs are not negatively affected. What does affect jobs is when low-income people are able to spend more money because they have more of it. It's like you don't understand basic supply-demand economics, because regardless of the taxes or minimum wage, a business is going to do whatever is most profitable for it, period. More often than not, a business is not going to fire people due to minimum wage and/or increased taxes when demand for a product or service is consistent, if not growing. That wouldn't be profitable, and what would be profitable would be to hire just enough employees to meet demand. More often than not, a business has already figured the maximally profitable price of a product or service using a price vs. demand chart, and increased taxes or minimum wage isn't going to change that equation much, if at all. What's going to change a business' hiring practices and/or prices is when demand increases and a willingness to pay higher prices increases, which are all effects of certain social programs and a higher minimum wage.
Up until now, I've been talking about a healthy economy. What about an unhealthy one? During the Recession, there was a compounding effect to job losses because the more people who lost their jobs, the lower demand went, and the lower the prices people were willing to pay went. Because of the drop in demand, businesses fired people because it was no longer profitable to keep them around, creating a positive feedback loop where the economy was hemorrhaging jobs. Two competing worldviews emerged to address the problem. The right-wing view was tax cuts on the rich, but if demand isn't addressed when the economy's problem is a demand problem, giving the rich tax cuts isn't going to do anything to change what is or isn't profitable for businesses, and they're going to sit on those tax cuts (which history has shown them doing). Why would a business take its tax cuts to hire more workers when the demand for a product is unchanged? The increased workforce does nothing to increase profits, causing the business to lose money paying that worker.
The left-wing view was to give tax breaks to low earners, social programs like food stamps for low earners, unemployment benefits, etc. In addition to it being moral to help those who are without work often at no fault of their own during the Recession, this also put money in the pockets of people who had no choice but to spend it. The metaphorical gears of the economy start turning again as demand increases, it becomes profitable for businesses to start hiring again, and the problem begins to fix itself.
There's nothing morally wrong with being libertarian; naivety and daydreaming are not sins, and I can empathize with small-government principles. But right-wing economic theory doesn't comport with how things work in reality.
By the way, we haven't established squat - you just said that it's idealistic based on no evidence whatsoever - not that you could have used evidence anyways since there has never been a libertarian government - it's untested as of yet, so I can't place the blame on you in this case. We did have plenty of socialist and social-democrat governments though, and we know how that works out.
Then you apparently didn't read the numerous posts where I explained in detail how and why your proposed economic solutions to real social problems don't work, and for many of your solutions, I even cited specific historical evidence.
I feel that in a large sense you do not understand rights vs privileges. To state that "should be able to do something" is a right is not really true. For example I think most people would agree that people "should be able to" have a car (due to the positives that it brings) yet would also agree that it is not a right in a legal sense. The same could go for many other things that current society views as items/services that are crucial but are not required inherent rights in their eyes. The Democrats (at least via the platform) view university in the same way in that it should be something that should be promoted due in largely for the benefits it brings to society but it is not as a right that every single person has as citizens of this Nation.
What makes your analogy a false one is no one is saying people should be able to get
free cars. Saying someone should be able to get a car for a price isn't a description of a right. Saying someone should be able to go to college without anything in return is a description of a right.
